


The Lost Art of the Blanket Nest

by pinstripedJackalope



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Gen, Grace reggie and pogo are all there for about five seconds, Kid Fic, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Luther POV, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Sleepovers, TUA Secret Santa, TUA Secret Santa 2020, it's before five runs away, like lowkey tho - Freeform, so they're all there, they're all thirteen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28346271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope
Summary: Luther can't believe that the one night Sir Hargreeves has trusted them to their own devices, Klaus has decided to dothis.AKA a Hargreeves Family kidfic sleepover.
Relationships: The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 9
Kudos: 56





	The Lost Art of the Blanket Nest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TerraYoung](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraYoung/gifts).



> Hey guys!! This is for the 2020 TUA secret santa! Hi terrayoung, I hope I have your AO3 right haha. This turned out a bit longer than I expected but alas, here we are! Hope you enjoy some sibling fluff!

“I’m relying on you to keep your teammates in line, Number One. Are we understood?”

Nodding seriously, Luther stands out of the way as Mom hands Sir Hargreeves his aviation hat and goggles. He’s already wearing his flight jacket, a no-nonsense number that is tailored to perfection and zipped up to his chin.

“Good,” Sir Hargreeves says. Then he turns on a heel, marching toward the front door. “Come along, Dr. Pogo! We have a situation to detangle and no time to waste.”

“Yes, Master,” Pogo says, passing Luther. He pats Luther on the elbow on the way past. Mom smiles, opening the door for the two of them.

“Bye bye, now! We’ll see you soon!” she calls, and waves as Sir Hargreeves marches smartly down the street toward the warehouse that houses his jet, Pogo at his heels. Then she closes the door, planting a hand on her hip. “Well. Seems we have the house to ourselves. How about we round up your siblings for dinner, hm?”

Luther nods, casting one last glance toward the panes of the front door where Sir Hargreeves disappeared before he heads for the stairs to fetch the others. 

It isn’t often that Sir Hargreeves gets pulled away from the house for more than an hour or two. Most of his enterprises are well oiled machines, the kind that run smoothly on their own without constant supervision. Problems that require Sir Hargreeves to come in person are few and far between. The good news is that Luther and the others are thirteen now—they’re old enough to handle themselves. They can conduct their own training and keep on task. 

Well, Luther can, at any rate. Not that the rest of his siblings are slackers, but… well… if the shoe fits.

As if to prove Luther’s point, Klaus, clearly having been listening at his bedroom door instead of studying like he should have been, pokes his head out. “Pssst!” he calls. “Hey, Luther! Is he gone?”

“Who?” Luther asks warily, knowing very well who Klaus means.

“Who do you _think_?” Klaus asks, affronted. “Is Dad gone or isn’t he?”

Luther resists the urge to roll his eyes. It’s a bad habit he has—Sir Hargreeves has made it clear that it’s an intolerable aberration on his public image when he does it in front of the cameras, and because public image and the traits you choose to nurture in private are one and the same, it’s intolerable all the time. He doesn’t know how Sir Hargreeves can even tell he’s rolling his eyes with the domino mask on, but he’s been trying to break himself of the habit all the same.

Klaus does not make it easy for him.

“Yes,” Luther says, and then plants his hand on Klaus’s mouth before his brother can let out a loud _whoop_. “Do _not_ ,” he says.

Klaus says something that sounds a lot like ‘ _wasn_ _’t going to_ ’, and then, because he’s Klaus and has the maturity of an eight year old, he licks Luther’s palm.

Luther glares at him, unamused. “Got it out of your system?” he asks.

Klaus huffs through his nose, the air shooting up and making some of his bangs fly up off his forehead. Then he nods, shoulders drooping.

“You taste like sweat,” he says, as soon as he’s free.

“That’s because you’re not supposed to _lick_ people,” Luther snaps. He tries to wipe his hand off on Klaus’s shoulder, but Klaus is already moving, ducking back into his room. “Where are you going? It’s time for dinner—” Luther starts, following.

“Nah, nah, nah,” Klaus says, paying no mind to the fact that Luther is trying to be responsible and focusing instead on prying up one of the floorboards of his room. He hums, digging around underneath it. “It’s time… for popcorn!”

“Where did you get that?” Luther asks, baffled, as he waves around a box full of microwave popcorn.

“I have my people,” Klaus says, and shrugs. He then shoves his hand back into the hole in the floor, scraping around. “I also have… ah… where is it… here we go!”

Luther stares at the oreos. “You’re kidding,” he says. 

“I do not kid about processed sugar,” Klaus says, and he does, in fact, appear dead serious. He rips open the package and crams one in his mouth, letting out a debauched moan that has Luther wincing. “Oh, this is good. You outta try one of these.”

Luther can’t help it—the eye roll happens before he can stop it. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but it needs to stop.”

“I’m living, Luther. Eye-dee-kay what you do all day long, but maybe you should try it sometime.”

“I can’t believe you,” Luther huffs. He bats away the oreo Klaus is holding out enticingly toward him, frowning down at his brother. “The one time Sir Hargreeves trusts us at home on our own and you want to—just— _blow_ it?”

“Uhhh… yes?” Klaus says, spitting oreo crumbs. “And I want you to join me.”

Luther shakes his head. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, big guy. Are you really going to wimp out on me? It’s just a little junk food. It’s not as if I’m asking you to do body shots off an amputee hooker in a cotton candy g-string—”

“Okay, okay! I get the point!” Luther yelps, trying to cover Klaus’s mouth again.

“—you sure? Because I didn’t even get to the part about eating the g-string off the hooker as a chaser,” Klaus says, neatly dodging him. And then, because he’s Klaus, he wriggles his eyebrows and offers the oreo again.

Luther pinches the bridge of his nose. He just… he has no idea what goes on in Klaus’s weird little noggin’. At all. In the slightest. All he knows is that once Klaus gets an idea in his head, he does _not_ let it go.

“…If I agree to this, will you go to dinner?” Luther asks at long last.

“Sure thing!” Klaus says, his eyes wide and innocent, if a little redder than they should be. “I’ll even eat all my veggies, cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Fine,” Luther says. “But after dinner.”

“Sure, sure,” Klaus says. He then reaches one last time into the abyss under the floorboards and pulls out an MP3 player and a pair of headphones, which he plants over his ears. He grins at Luther, exiting the room and bobbing his way down the hall.

This is, in retrospect, the moment it all goes downhill.

***

“Can you explain to me how we got from popcorn and oreos to… this?” Luther asks.

Klaus huffs, emerging from the pile of blankets that is currently swamping the living room. “Junk food,” he says, “is a sleepover _staple_. You can’t expect me to share my stash and _not_ have a party.”

“Why do you have to say ‘stash’ like it’s drugs?” Luther asks, exasperated. It’s after dinner now, the clock ticking toward curfew. Luther edges around the couch, glancing nervously at Mom, who is holding a fancy serving platter with a bowl of popcorn and a plate of oreos on it. She agreed to let them all sleep in the living room after Klaus pitched it as a ‘team building exercise’, but Luther is pretty sure it’s still against the rules. If Sir Hargreeves finds out…

“Five! Hurry up!” Klaus yells, making Luther jump.

“Keep your _pants_ on,” Five says, appearing behind Klaus and dumping an armful of blankets on his head before blinking away again. Klaus splutters, falling backwards in an awkward tangle of limbs just as Diego and Allison make their way down the stairs, each carting an armful of whatever it is that Klaus ordered them to fetch, because apparently none of them are capable of saying no to Number Four. As they get closer Luther makes out a bunch of stuffed animals and pillows. Vanya and Ben bring up the rear, Ben holding a stack of books and Vanya clutching a basket of freshly laundered pajamas. 

“Got all the scary stories I could find,” Ben huffs, dropping them onto the coffee table that’s been pushed to one side. “And we ran the pajamas through the dryer for a few minutes, too.” 

“Oooh! Fantastic idea, Benji!” Klaus says, muffled, from under the blankets. He grunts as Diego drops the pillows where Luther assumes his face is. “Now we just need some mood music and we’ll be _set_.”

“Where are you getting mood music?” Luther asks. He frowns as at least three pairs of eyes focus on him, shuffling where he stands. “What?” he asks. 

“We need your record player, _Number One_ ,” Diego says, rolling his eyes as if this should be obvious.

“What? No! I said we’d have some popcorn, I never agreed to be a part of _this_ ,” Luther huffs, raising both hands and backing up.

“Oh, don’t be a _baby_ ,” Diego says, digging through the laundry basket. He pulls out his pajamas, embroidered with a pattern of stylized number twos, and marches off to change.

“Yeah, what he said,” Klaus says, emerging, finally, with his hair standing straight up from the static. He throws an arm out, grabbing Vanya around the knees and making her squeak with surprise. “We can’t exactly ask Vanya here to play her violin all night, now can we?”

“Let her go,” Allison snorts. Then she turns to Luther, and Luther knows before she even does it that he’s about to get her infamous puppy eyes at four-hundred watts. “Luther,” she says, clasping her hands in front of her, “don’t you think it would be _nice_ to play a record or two for your siblings? Just one or two, pleasey please please?”

“You, too?” Luther asks, pouting. “I thought you’d be on my side.”

Allison hums, and now her puppy eyes have been joined by Klaus’s, the two of them pleading so hard with their faces that Luther is pretty sure they’re going to stick like that. Ben is munching on a cookie, but he, too, looks like he’s hoping for Luther to cave. Even Vanya, when Luther glances over, just shrugs, her eyes wide.

Luther sighs. “Fine,” he says, begrudgingly. “One record. Before Sir Hargreeves comes back and catches all of us breaking curfew.”

“ _Hells_ to the _yes_!” Klaus yells. He grabs Allison’s hands and begins to swing her around in a bastardized waltz, making her laugh. She catches Luther’s eyes over Klaus’s shoulder, a smile on her face before she switches their positions and begins to lead.

Luther shakes his head. Then he heads upstairs to get his record player and the box of records he keeps under his bed.

Soon enough they’ve all changed, Klaus stripping down right in the middle of the blanket nest and snuggling into his pajamas with a deep, relaxed sigh. He then _flumps_ into the nest of blankets, rolling over until his head is on Five’s stomach, humming softly. Luther is ninety percent sure that he snuck out at some point to smoke a joint because there is a very particular smell about him that Luther associates with him being high off his ass. Because of course he is. 

Luther shakes his head again, carefully pulling a Cyndi Lauper record from its sleeve. “Here,” he says, and moves the needle onto the grooves just as Five unseats Klaus with a disgusted grunt. Klaus clicks his tongue, rolling the other way until he’s cuddled up against Diego, who raises a lip but allows it, for now, flipping a throwing knife with the hand that Klaus doesn’t have trapped. The seven of them then fall into a (mostly) comfortable hum of conversation, voices ebbing and flowing as easily as breathing as the platter of snacks makes its way around, crumbs getting in the blankets but no one quite caring enough to do anything about it. Luther elects to stay quiet as he munches, settling beside Allison in his red academy pajamas and drawing his knees up to his chest, Ben on his other side and Vanya beyond him. 

It doesn’t take long before Five, always so agitated these days, dominates the conversation with a rant about how Sir Hargreeves won’t let him time travel, a perceived slight that has been under his skin like a splinter for at least three months now. Luther tries to keep up with all his siblings’ training, but to be honest Five’s requires so many equations and so much theoretical math that he’s lucky if he understands a quarter of it. Luther lets the words drift in and out and all around the music, Cyndi Lauper’s high, strong voice ringing through the air.

The first record isn’t even over when Luther hears a snore, a small snuffle just audible under the music and Five’s nonstop talking. He looks around, trying to spot the origin. He finds it without too much hassle—it’s Klaus, now snuggled up to a pillow between Ben and Vanya, his mouth slack. Luther exchanges a look with Ben, who snickers under his breath. “Physical training got to him,” he whispers. Luther can’t help but smile. 

From there it’s a race to see who will take the swan-dive into sleep next. They don’t get nights like this often, but they train seven days a week and it’s already getting late, leaving them all too tired to do anything really wild. Five isn’t going under any time soon, not with the speed at which he’s talking, but Vanya barely looks like she’s following and Allison keeps yawning. Diego doesn’t look much different from always, but he’s flagging, as well. The tell is in how he keeps switching his knife flipping from hand to hand, like he’s trying to keep himself awake with the stimulation.

Luther shares another look with Ben, who tilts his head over toward Vanya as if to say _she_ _’ll go first_. Luther considers them all again, and nods in agreement. Then, feeling sly, he waits until the needle reaches the end of the Cyndi Lauper record and replaces it with a Peter Gabriel one. He listens to this one real low some nights when he’s having a hard time falling asleep—there’s something really soothing about Peter Gabriel’s voice. Ben gives Luther a thumbs up.

“—which is stupid, because the polynomial equation in question is easy to parse if you know the gravitational values of the relative celestial bodies—” Five says, and then pauses to suck in a breath and continue, so focused that he’s been forgetting to breathe. Luther nods along, cutting his eyes over to Vanya every few minutes. Her eyes are still on Five, but her chin is starting to dip now, her gaze looking a little unfocused. Ten minutes later her eyes slip closed, her head slumping down onto her chest in a way that Luther is sure is going to hurt come morning.

Ben, who seems to think so, too, takes a moment to lean over and slowly rearrange her so that she’s lying flat. She mumbles something and then settles again, her bangs flared out against a pillow.

Luther nods approvingly. Two down, now. Who will be next?

He glances around, Diego to Five to Allison to Ben. Ben is reaching for one of the books on the table, pulling it toward himself and flipping it open. He and Five both seem very much awake, as is Luther himself, but Allison and Diego are now whispering to themselves as they glance at Five, who has yet to realize that his captive audience is no longer quite so captive (or who, more likely, just doesn’t care). Diego is doing a good job of resisting the contagious quality of Allison’s yawns, but every once in a while he can’t quite suppress one. Luther is fairly certain that he’s going to go next, but he’s not going to do it while Luther is watching so Luther turns instead to Ben, hunching down so he can see the book over his shoulder.

“So… what’s with the books?” he asks in a whisper, and Ben glances up.

“Oh, these? Klaus thought it would be fun to try and out-spook each other. You know, like they do in movies.”

“Don’t they usually do that around a camp fire?” Luther asks.

“Well yeah, but you know how he is,” Ben says, and though he rolls his eyes the words are fond.

Luther nods. Then he hums, shifting a little closer. “Do you want to do that?” he asks.

“Sure,” Ben says, and then he lights up, grabbing another book from the stack. “Here, I’ll read Dracula for you, that’s a good one.”

Luther nods. He’s read it before, but he’s not about to tell Ben that, not with how excited Ben looks. He settles in and lets his brother start, listening intently as the story begins to take form. Allison and Diego’s whispered conversation falls quiet, the two of them tuning in to the progress of Jonathan Harker up to the Castle Dracula and his introduction to the mysterious count. It flows easily, Ben’s voice low but strong, and the next time Luther looks up it’s only because the room is quieter than it should be. The record has ended, re realizes, but also… there’s no physics chatter. 

Why is there no physics chatter.

Luther looks around, concerned, before he spots Five, slumped against the couch and out cold. _The kid must have talked himself to sleep_ , Luther thinks, and snorts. Both Allison and Diego are out, too, and Vanya and Klaus are still very much asleep, leaving Luther and Ben as the last survivors of the night.

Luther glances over at Ben, who reaches the end of a paragraph and pauses. “Are they all out?” he asks, voice low.

Luther nods. “Do you want to keep going?” he asks.

Ben considers it for a moment. “…Nah. Here, you read for a bit.”

Luther takes the book, peering down at it in the dim lamplight as he tries to find the place Ben left off. He’s just about to start reading when suddenly, from the sleepy stillness, he hears a whimper. It’s small, and pained, and fearful, and it’s coming straight from Klaus’s direction.

Luther and Ben move as one, years of training kicking in just like that. Klaus is less combat oriented than the rest of them—he’s not designed to fight. All of their formations and strategies have Klaus at the back, guarding the entrance or taking care of civilians, because he’s not built for offense. He doesn’t belong in the middle of gunfire. And he _certainly_ isn’t supposed to make noises like _that_.

“Klaus?” Ben whispers, kneeling at their brother’s head so that Luther has room to settle next to him. Klaus’s face is pale and twisted up, his fingers locked tight on the pillow in his grip. He gasps, still asleep, and twitches like he’s trying to back away from something.

“No…” he says, his voice barely a breath. “No, please don’t, please—”

Luther swallows, looking hurriedly over at Ben for some kind of instruction on what to do. He’s Number One, he should know, but it’s been so long since he’s seen Klaus have a nightmare that he’s more thrown than he wants to let on. It’s just… it really has been a long time. Klaus used to have these terrible, screaming night terrors a _lot_ shortly after their powers manifested, when he first began seeing ghosts, but it’s been years since then and Luther really thought he’d grown out of them. 

_Well, maybe he has_ , Luther reasons, as Ben starts to stroke Klaus’s hair back from his pale face. He isn’t screaming, he’s just… moaning and muttering to himself, restless in sleep. He’s always in motion when he’s awake, Luther thinks—it pains him a bit to think that Klaus can’t find peace even in sleep.

He pushes the thought from his mind. “What should I do?” he asks, bracing his hands against the blankets on the ground, ready to get up to fetch anything Ben asks for.

“Would you keep reading? That should help him calm down a little,” Ben whispers.

Luther nods, serious, and grabs the book. He’s not entirely convinced that a scary story in the dark in the middle of the night is going to help Klaus with his nightmares, but if Ben thinks it’s worth a shot then he’ll do it. He fumbles for a moment, trying to find the page they left off, before he starts reading, keeping his voice low to soothe Klaus while not waking the others in the process.

It takes a while. Klaus twitches and cries out, the nightmare getting worse before it gets better. But Luther keeps going, knowing that if isn’t working Ben will tell him to stop, and soon enough Klaus slowly, softly, begins to settle, his breathing evening out. Ben keeps stroking his hair until he’s completely still once more, the tension leaking out of his face.

Luther keeps going for a bit after that, until he’s cut off with a hefty yawn. Ben is drooping where he’s sitting, stubbornly watching Klaus until Luther closes the book and bumps him on the shoulder with it. 

“We should get some sleep, too,” Luther says, and Ben nods. They settle in as quietly as they can, Ben curled up right next to Klaus and Luther on his other side, watching over them both. They’ll get in trouble in the morning, he’s sure, when Sir Hargreeves jets back in and finds them all snuggled up together in the living room, but Luther finds that he doesn’t mind as much now. He loves his siblings, all of them—he cares for them so much. Even when they’re intent on getting him in trouble. Especially when despite that trouble he can see how much they’re hurting. Klaus… Ben… Five, Allison, Vanya… heck, even Diego. 

_I wish we could do this more often_ , he thinks to himself, wistful, casting his gaze around at all six of them. The last thing he sees before he closes his eyes is Klaus, still dead asleep, nuzzling his face into Ben’s chest.

**Author's Note:**

> It's the last day of posting and I'm cutting it so close, oof, I'm sorry.


End file.
